Basic Trope: A frightening apparition of a female, white-clad ghost who looks rather bedraggled.
- Straight: Alice appears to Bob wearing a white gown, with stringy hair over her face.
- Exaggerated: Her face is horribly disfigured, and she has some Yandere-ish Ghostly Goals.
- Downplayed: Alice is more of a harmless poltergeist despite her appearance. She occasionally spooks people with pranks. She even defuses direct appearances in a pranky way - after she fades away she has some sort of look-alike object behind her such as a wig-stand or a propped up mop that resembles her hair.
- Justified:
- Alice was raped and murdered (or died some other such horrible death) while wearing a white nightgown, and has not been able to move onto the afterlife.
- Gravedirt and rot-juice are murder on your hair.
- Inverted:
- Cute Ghost Girl.
- The ghost is actually a dude.
- Alice the ghost appears wearing a black suit and with her short hair neatly combed.
- Subverted:
- Alice is wearing white and looks a little bedraggled, but she's a benevolent spirit.
- She's alive.
- Alice is just a regular girl who has the appearance down to a T...but she's the nicest person anyone's ever met.
- Double Subverted:
- Alice's appearance still frightens Bob (and anyone else who sees her) whatever her intentions.
- Alice gets killed with that appearance, but her death offers her no respite from her inner demons... and offers others no respite from her.
- But push her too far and she becomes indistinguishable from this trope played straight. Beware the Nice Ones indeed...
- Parodied:
- Alice is Bob's Yandere ex-girlfriend (or current one)
- Alice keeps bumping into things because her hair obscures her vision.
- A male Love Interest has a crush on Alice and is somehow completely oblivious to her horrifying appearance. To him she's the most beautiful girl in the world and he gets angry/offended when someone mentions how terrifying Alice looks.
- When The Fashionista sees how disheveled Alice the ghost is, she immediately decides to give the ghost girl a makeover.
- Zig Zagged: Alice's appearance is linked to her mental and emotional state - on days when she's ridden with hatred she looks scary, on days when she's not she looks normal (well, as normal as a ghost can be considered) or even cute.
- Averted:
- Alice looks pretty and does not scare people.
- Alice is not a ghost.
- Enforced:
- Lampshaded: "And she was a frightening sight! She was dressed in a white gown, and her hair covered her disfigured face..."
- Invoked: Alice finds she is unable to move on due to the circumstances surrounding her death.
- Exploited: Finding herself in her situation she uses her appearance to frighten her foes for revenge and to make them feel remorse.
- Defied:
- Alice decides that she's safe now that she's dead and allows herself to go to Heaven.
- When Alice comes to terms with her death and moves onto the afterlife, her appearance improves markedly before she leaves.
- Discussed: "Is...is she friendly?" "Does she look like Casper to you?"
- Conversed: "She looks like that Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl from The Ring, doesn't she?"
- Deconstructed: This ghost is usually that of someone who died a horrible death and/or was wronged or rejected by a Love Interest. Not surprisingly, their Ghostly Goals can be troublesome.
- A less funny version of the "boy meets girl" where people's reaction to Alice really takes its toll on the male Love Interest. Why are people so scared of this mindblowingly beautiful woman, he wonders. His friends reassure him that everyone's just intimidated by her beauty. He eventually sees through this and hates humanity for how they treat his girlfriend to where he goes so Knight Templar Alice tells him to cool it because he's scaring her, to avoid risking losing the woman he loves most, he instead bottles up his rage. Which eventually comes out, and when it does, it's not pretty.
- Reconstructed: Alice the ghost is trying to be patient with anyone alive whom could help her achieve her ghostly goals knowing that scaring them isn't likely to get them to cooperate, but repeated failure after failure for whatever reason over the decades is wearing on her psyche and appearance. Which makes it even more difficult to get living people to help since her appearance alone can frighten them away.
- Sure, his rage coming out and boiling over wasn't pretty but it was used to defend Alice or someone else. He feels better and is seen as a hero, even if some think he took it a little far. Alice and him grow closer together and many even accept his relationship with Alice.
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